Talk:Anglo-Frisian languages

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[edit] Sprachbund

Were early Anglo-Frisian and Old Saxon really different enough from each other to be considered a Sprachbund? According to that article, a Sprachbund is made up of unrelated languages (Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai) or distantly related languages (Romanian, Bulgarian, Albanian). Perhaps dialect continuum would be a better term? Angr/talk 11:39, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Loanword from Norse

"kirk is a loanword from Norse" assumedly like bick, birk, breeks, sic, steek, thack and yeuk etc? 84.135.215.2 15:36, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] family tree

It seems confusing that four dead languages are mixed in with five living languages in the family tree. Is this inevitable, or would it be helpful to readers to identify in some way the modern languages dialects and creoles in the Anglo-Frisian family? 82.152.97.125 10:29, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

When I read your comment, I was going to add † after the dead ones, but discovering that they were just different time periods of English I decided it'd be better to remove them altogether. They're not separate branches after all.
We might want to remove Yola too, but I don't know enough about that (and the article isn't very enlightening). --Ptcamn 15:23, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
I don't see any reason to remove the older forms of English. If we do both that and remove the modern dialects (as we've already done), we'll be left with nothing in the list but English and Frisian, which is extremely unenlightening. User:Angr 15:54, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Well, I'm not sure that including Early Modern English is useful..
If anything, rather than listing them all on the same level, it should be something like:

--Ptcamn 17:41, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

What ever you do don't add Early Scots and Middle Scots otherwise Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) will go ballistic. 84.135.234.174 17:29, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Let him go ballistic seeing as how he has no problem with the "Middle Ages" (a term that i doubt was used by the Middle Aged folks but which was just "made up later by historians"!!? As for "Middle English", can he provide us with a quote of the term "Middle English" in Middle English to justify its non spurious application to describe speech of the time as seen from the present day,or does he only object to Scots being referred to from a modern point of view!? I mean the idea of any modern term for something in the past being spurious renders such terminology spurious/dishonest/garbage etc. (ie all the words he uses on any page covering Scots/Middle Scots/Yola etc Check out the tangle he gets into over Irish/Gaelic on the talk Middle Irish page , its enlightening as to where his linguistic prejudices lie. And all because he didnt want to use the same word for the Irish language as the Scottish "native one" (which is in itself a spurious idea seeing as Cumric was the language of Scotland long before the Irish Gaels arrived!)80.192.59.202 03:40, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

I almost wish that I hadn't started this by asking the question. However I tend to agree with Ptcamn that removing the historical forms of English makes the tree a little clearer. However Ptcamm's alternate suggestion of levels also achieves this aim, I feel. Can someone tell me if it is correct, linguistically, to include the English creoles in the Anglo-Frisian group? If it is not required for technical accuracy, a reader might find it helpful to see a family tree of the historic and modern European members of the family - perhaps like this,

Of course the creoles and pijins could still be mentioned, but they all have a common parent (in this tree.) Now we have mostly living languages, with the historic languages clear, but one extinct language (Yola) as a leaf of the tree. I hope there is enough clarity there to inform a casual encyclopaedia reader. Did anyone notice that another user was reverting Ptcamn's and Angr's edits to the tree? They did not explain their motivation in talk or in the edit summary - so perhaps the three of us can continue debating? By the way, are my edits to the map ok? --82.152.97.125 23:05, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

What about Old Frisian and Middle Frisian? --Ptcamn 23:33, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Good point Ptcamn. I just re-read the Frisian language article and had the same thought. There seems to be a pattern in Wikipedia family trees not to include historic languages that are parents of modern languages - just groupings or divisions - which would mean reverting Angr's edit (again! - I just read Jkelly's apology for his accidental revert on Angr's talk page). We end up with this :

It is a little sparse, but probably informative. Are we any closer to a consensus? I suspect not. --00:29, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Done. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 11:03, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I'm new to this discussion, but one thing; if the older languages are left off (conforming with other trees in Wikipedia), can we list English instead of Modern English? Also, English language is a much more comprehensive article to link to, rather than Modern English language. If I don't find any argument otherwise in the next few days, I'll change it. Paxsimius 03:33, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Map

The map ought to be changed as it shows High German for the whole of Germany. While it is true that most Low Saxon dialects are nowadays seriously endangered or moribund and being replaced by the standard language (High German, Hochdeutsch), the northern half of Germany is traditionally shown as Low Saxon (or Low German) speaking. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Unoffensive text or character (talk • contribs) 12:32, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

There's a disclaimer about this on the image description page. —Angr 12:51, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

I kind of object to all of Ireland being included here. Can't we grey-out some Gaeltacht regions?

There's nowhere in Ireland, even in the Gaeltacht, where English isn't the majority language. —Angr 06:48, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Frisian vs. West Frisian

In the examples should "Frisian" be relabelled "West Frisian"? I presume that is what is meant, but I want to double check. Ireneshusband 20:13, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

It is, and I'll correct it, thanks. Bikerams 20:24, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Why is that section even there? "Swadesh list"-style charts without analysis don't provide any useful information, and with analysis violate WP:NOR. —Angr 14:04, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
Aim was to expand the article somewhat, in line with the Dutch and (West) Frisian articles. What kind of analysis would be required? If the table is of no use, I won't be offended if it's deleted. Bikerams 15:29, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, it would have to be illustrating something specific. A chart like that could show sound changes that are unique to Anglo-Frisian (assibilation of k before front vowels, Anglo-Frisian brightening, etc.), but then the examples would have to be specific to the topic, not just the numbers 1-10. —Angr 16:36, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
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